NaNo2013: Speedster's Secrets: Part 4

They had not really finished the scene to Snap’s satisfaction when the time on the room booking ran out and someone knocked on the door. As Speedster went crashing into one of the mats that had been hidden by the scenery, the props that had been summoned vanished from the room. Luna let out a relieved sigh as the trap that had been holding her vanished into the ether. She rubbed her sour wrists, having struggled against the trap, trying to pull herself free, and then moved over to Speedster’s side.

“Heya,” Luna chuckled as she offered the downed speed freak a hand to her feet, “So that was productive.”

“Productive but painful.” Speedster grouched, wincing as Luna pulled her to her feet. “And I’m sure Hex enjoyed that far too much.” She grouched as she glowered over to where Hex, Spike and Michael were talking rapidly and with great big grins on their faces.

“I think I have almost everything I need.” Snap spoke up as the door opened from the outside and another student poked their head in to check if they could use the room yet. “I just need to film the end of that scene and edit it together with the footage I’ve got, how’s tomorrow evening for everyone? About eightish?”

Everyone got changed as quickly as possible, confirming that eight o’clock the following evening was fine with them and the group split up. Luna and Speedster both headed for town, the two girls wanting to get some shopping in before Speedster dragged Luna to her martial arts class. The latter of the two girls wasn’t keen on fighting, but her Other Self had been interested in learning how to defend herself after a pair of goons had tried to jump her and she had had to resort to Challenging the pair to escape unharmed.

Speedster didn’t mind. It would be nice to have one of her friends from the Club go with her. She had started learning a long time before she had gained her powers and she could no longer go full speed against others from her martial arts classes, but the sensei was teaching her new things all the time and it was an interesting experiment to learn all of his teachings at a ‘normal’ pace and then experiment with them at her full speed. It meant she was getting physically stronger and the momentum she could put behind her blows when she was speeding, meant that there was a lot more force behind them than just her muscles.

Not that she could test it against Luna of all people for two reasons. ‘A,’ because Luna was a white belt, untrained except in the very basics and ‘B,’ because without using her powers to set up magic and traps against her, it wouldn’t have been a fair fight.  But still, just having another Club member to hang around with during the breaks and walk to and from the training sessions with.

“So, who have you got left to buy for?” Speedster asked as she followed Luna down the stairs and out the exit, trying to ignore the fact that going at a normal, human, pace was driving her a bit nuts. Everything seemed so painfully slow in comparison to her usual pace. Still Luna wasn’t anywhere near as fast as her, in fact she was rather out of condition even in comparison to some of the other martial arts students, so she was keeping to her friend’s pace.

“Mikey, Snap, Mako and you.” Luna explained, ticking it off on her fingers as she did so, “Mikey’s really easy, there’s a new structure deck out that’s just down his alley. Snap wanted a new camera case and I know where to get a really nice one. Mako’s already shown me something she’s thinking about getting after Christmas that’s well within my budget. It’s just you.” She glanced at her friend, who looked thoughtful, “You still haven’t given any indication of what you want.”

“I...don’t know.” Speedster admitted, wishing she was as up to date with her Christmas shopping as her friend was. “I don’t think I’ve really paid enough attention to... what?” She asked as Luna started giggling at her.

“You’re hopeless.” Luna continued to giggle at her, “You haven’t really given any thought to this at all have you?”

“I thought about everyone else’s presents.” Speedster protested, “I just...” She sighed, “I don’t really stop long enough to watch films unless I’m tired enough to collapse. I can’t play video games any more, the screen flickering drives me nuts. I only read books last thing at night and music’s about the only thing bar clothes I really buy now.”

“Screen flickering?” Luna questioned.

“Yeah, you know, between frames? While it’s rendering?” Speedster complained, “It’s really annoying.”

“I’ve never seen the...” Luna trailed off and looked thoughtful, “So books or music. Got a favourite type?”

“Rock or heavy metal.” Speedster grinned at her, “I pay both on my guitar and all the other music I used to listen too is so slowly paced it drives me a little crazy. And I favour fantasy or action books.”

“Right.” Luna made a mental note, “Of course you’re going to have to shoo while I buy yours but...” Speedster just shrugged, “You can buy mine at the same time. Have you brought the Club joint gift yet?”

“No.” Juliet shook her head, looking sheepish. “I keep meaning to but things keep coming up. It’s not like I really know what to get them anymore. Last year...well you remember last year.” Luna nodded, a small frown creasing her features. Last year she had let someone else by the joint present since her final major project meant she hadn’t had the time to go and explore the shops and find something suitable. The person she had sent in her stead had been the one who had found the two sets of World Spheres and distributed them to the club.

A little bit of laziness on her part had changed everyone’s lives. She didn’t want to make a similar mistake this year too.

“You do realise the odds of anything like that happening again are slim to none, right?” Luna asked, amused despite herself.

“You do realise that with the trouble magnets we have Fused into our group, the odds of something insane happening multiply by so much that something happening is practically a guarantee at this point?” Speedster shot back, “With our luck the person I sent would find the Items or the Emeralds.”

Luna had to admit that Juliet had a point. The problem with the heroes that some of the group had fused with was that if anything weird could happen, there were good odds of it happening to them. Since there was a large concentration of them in the Club it would have been a sucker bet that something would go wrong.

“I was thinking about just getting gift vouchers or something.” Speedster admitted, “For Amazon or the like that way people can get what they want. Either that or something pretty and shiny for people’s Christmas trees.”

“All the Christmas stuff on the shelves around here are pretty tacky.” Luna warned with a grimace, “I’ve had a look myself ‘cause I need to replace some of my baubles. You’d be better off going somewhere with a year round Christmas shop. I know Bath has a good one.”

“And it wouldn’t take me long to get down there.” Juliet considered, “That could work. So it’s just my personal presents to get today. So you, Snap, Mako, Mum, Dad and Cordi.”

“Cordi?” Luna couldn’t help her surprise, “You’re talking to Cordelia again?”

“She may be an immature brat and a pain in my rear, but she is my little sister.” Juliet shrugged, “So yeah, I have to talk to her at Christmas, we’ll both be back at our parents’ house after all.”

Luna nodded in understanding even as she thought about what she needed to get and what planned out the best route to get around town. Considering the city centre was packed with holiday shoppers, they had to shop smart if they expected to get anywhere. As it was, even with Luna’s planning it took them hours to get everything they needed and as they settled in a cafe to have a hot drink and get out of the snow, Speedster was seriously considering just getting the hell out of town. Perhaps running down to Bath to pick up the Club gifts but nothing else.

Luna, however, had other ideas. “We need to go to one last place.” She informed a groaning Speedster was wanted nothing more than for the shopping trip to be over. “And I know neither of us are going to enjoy it, but I don’t think either of us have anything to wear to the Club Christmas party.”

That was an unfortunate truth. The last time Speedster had worn her ‘nice’ dress, it had been to the last Christmas party and she had lost weight over the course of the year. All the clothes that had fitted her this time last year were now two sizes too big.

“Do we have to do this today?” Speedster groaned. The queues were too slow, the shops too packed and town in general too crowded.

“Party’s Sunday.” Luna reminded her, “I have class till seven tomorrow and Snap has us booked in the rest of the week for recording.”  

“Damn it.” Was a tamer version of what Speedster wanted to say, but considering the small children sat at the next table over, she had to tone it down to avoid getting the evil eye from the kids’ mothers. Both of whom were ignoring the antics of their little ‘angels’ and talking about some soap or another that was popular on TV recently.

It took them a while to find the right dresses, ones that looked good but didn’t restrict movement too much or were too short or the like, and it wasn’t until Speedster went into her handbag to get her purse out that she realised that there were things missing. Her purse for one was gone, forcing her to put the dress back on the shelf for the time being as she and Luna backtracked through the changing rooms, around the shop and back to the coffee shop, along with the envelope with the money for the Club Christmas presents in and worse, the jewellery box containing her World Sphere was missing too.

It was the last that had Speedster in the biggest tizzy. Though she knew logically that it had probably been taken from her bag because it looked like it should be jewellery and hence worth a decent chunk of money, she couldn’t help but panic over what could happen. No one had dared hand a World Sphere to anyone outside the Club so no one knew if their power to Fuse people with others from another world still existed.

If her World Sphere still had that power, it was possible that it could Fuse the thief, or whoever else handled it. And then there would be a Fusion out there with no support network, no idea that there was anyone else out there to help them and no way for them to get in contact with the Club if they needed help.

That there would be no way to keep tabs on them either was just the icing on the cake.

It didn’t matter how carefully the pair of them searched, there was no sign of any of the missing items and Speedster had no choice but to go to the bank to block her debit card before going to the police to report the theft.

It grated on her nerves. If she had known who had taken her stuff and when she could have gone and gotten her stuff back herself and she wouldn’t be worrying about the World Sphere’s whereabouts or how she was going to afford the Club presents this year. With her abilities it would have been easy. Instead she was left kicking at the ground and praying that nothing bad happened because of a few moments where she hadn’t been paying attention.